Royal Toast - The Claudia Quintet
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Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 9 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: The experimental jazz quintet led by Grammy-nominated John Hollenbeck invites Gary Versace for its fifth album.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. It's another extraordinary musical experience from the Claudia Quintet, who deserve all the high marks they receive as an innovative, thought-provoking, singularly unique contemporary ensemble.
  2. For those unfamiliar with this exemplary quintet and its composer, there's no better place to begin.
  3. Claudia's timbres, eerie and winsome in equal measure, prove its greatest strong point. The combination of clarinet, accordion and vibraphone fashions an electric whistle and whir that squares the circle between 90s indie science frictioners Stereolab and 60s proto-proggers Soft Machine, making it clear that Claudia is a jazz group questioning the divide between genres and points in time.
  4. Short, overdubbed dialogue solos by Speed, bassist Drew Gress and vibist Matt Moran add diverting interludes, and there's plenty of dreamy humming-glass sounds and luxurious accordion sighs to balance all this fine album's industrious busyness.

See all 9 Critic Reviews